Playground

Rock stared into the mirror, the collective pain pooling in his glazed eyes. Geraldine lurked creepily behind him and slipped the raggedy coat off his torso. Her hands lingered longer than necessary on his muscular frame, familiar with his physique. She caressed Rock as she disrobed him.

“Oooof, my word,” Geraldine said. “When’s the last time you bathed? You’re most certainly going to need to take a shower. I can’t have you smelling so foul in front of our guests. Even if you’re not above them, you need to act like it. Get this undershirt off.”

Rock hesitated. An unavoidable, rotten reminder was looming. One he wasn’t ready to confront again. It was the reason his funk had become so swollen that it leaked into his battered garments.

Geraldine scrunched her face.

“Take it off, I said!”

The cutting command caused Rock to jump.

Geraldine’s hands remained resting on the back of his arms. She quivered as the warmth spread through her. Feeling the physical manifestation of his fear contact her phalanges excited Geraldine. It enticed her.

Rock pulled the white undershirt over his muscular frame and dropped it onto the floor.

Geraldine peered around the wall of man in front of her, gazing into the standing mirror, feeding on the agony bouncing back from Rock’s pupils.

The melancholic muscleman eyed the reflective glass, still unable to believe it was real. He was the past, present, and future in a single glimpse.

Suddenly, his senses were overwhelmed, and visceral flashes of the encounter crept back into his head. The scent of cooked flesh found his nasal cavity again. The sound of searing skin crackled its way into his eardrums. He felt the itchy ropes binding his wrists, and the rigidness of the wooden chair he was tied to. The soreness in his throat flared from the desperate screams relentlessly ravaging it.

Rock’s eyes dropped as they took in the reddish-violet skin that bubbled back toward him. The eternally inflamed tissue puffed upward, discolored by the unforgiving heat of the branding iron Geraldine had held all those years ago.

At that time, Rock was just a throwaway, an unwanted and undeveloped teenager. She’d been harsh and wicked to him, but he’d never expected things to escalate in the manner they had. He never imagined such an irreversible event would transpire.

Through that old, adolescent lens, Geraldine looked a bit different in his mind. Her skin was smoother, and her hair had more color, but her tongue was still as sharp as ever. The verbal lashings hadn’t changed with time. They remained her most punishing tool, one that haunted Rock as steadily as Geraldine’s hand the moment she pressed the scalding iron into his chest.

Over.

And over.

And over.

Rock recalled how Geraldine had screamed while his flesh had flared from the blistering heat.

“Why did you look at her?!” she’d said. “I saw you!”

Just a short distance away from where he’d sat, Wanda, the then live-in maid, lay motionless on the floor. A growing outline of garnet gruesomeness had infected the carpet. The soaked flooring her cracked head lay upon would be the site of Wanda’s final thoughts.

The battered brain tissue littered around her malformed head was a ghastly image that had burned itself into Rock. It was the picture of all potential fear. The violent amalgamation of inner cranial tissues, skeletal fragments, and Geraldine’s rage. An incident that left an impression of such depth on him that it would last a lifetime.

Rock remembered the nonchalant nature of the only other living adult in the room, the straight face Fuchs wore as he watched the madness unfold, sitting casually on the sofa by the fireplace. The gory murder was far from the most difficult thing Fuchs had seen. It looked like just another evening for him as he puffed away on his pipe, watching the branding irons in the fire grow a lighter shade of ginger.

“You’d better take a damn good look at her now!” Geraldine bellowed. “Because it’s the last time you’ll ever fucking see her! It’s the last time you’ll ever see anyone!”

Geraldine’s grim words weren’t exactly accurate. Rock would see her again, for he would be tasked with turning Wanda’s body into fertilizer.

Her carcass was hefty.

The generous portions of garbled-up tissue allowed the insects to eat well that evening. After the deed was done, Rock peered over the land, trying to lose himself in the soothing sound of the ocean waves. In his heart, he hoped the garden’s insects would never eat so well again.

It wouldn’t be the last time Rock heard the hungry hum of the industrial-grade wood chipper. More meat would be tenderized, and more bones would be mangled. The device continued to gain relevance as his twisted relationship with Geraldine unraveled.

Wanda’s departure left a void in the housework, but no replacement was hired. Geraldine’s jealousy kept new personalities from entering the fold. Instead, she forced Rock to absorb all of Wanda’s duties, in addition to the ones he already managed.

Geraldine’s delusional belief that there was a sexual interest between Rock and the help would never be corrected. His punishment remained permanently in effect, and those living within the walls of The Borden Estate continued their push to total societal isolation.

Rock trembled with disgust, breaking out of his dream-like state as Geraldine’s pruned paws glided upward over the unalterable letters scorched into his skin.

“You’re mine, remember?” she whispered seductively.

The discolored letters weren’t perfectly aligned, but they were close enough to understand the four-letter word that had been singed into Rock’s soul.

As Rock stared into the mirror and read the ghastly font that comprised the word ‘MINE,’ a single tear fell down his bristly cheek.

“And you’ll be mine forever,” Geraldine said.

She laid down on the bed behind them and delicately tugged Rock’s hand.

The conservative dress Geraldine wore became the opposite when she arched her rickety back, and pulled the onyx-toned sartorial up over her hips.

As Geraldine stared at his solemn expression and the permanent label she’d administered beneath it, she only grew more eager to feel his tongue inside her. She pulled her moist panties down, allowing her fermented beaver to peek out from below. The scent was just as ungodly as the sight. Rock stared at the stretchy skin abound with wrinkles. The slick and sudsy sap leaking out from her floppy hole glistened in the daylight. When Geraldine got juicy, she manufactured a rancid odor all her own, one that made Rock sick to his stomach each time he encountered it.

The fetid aroma floundered about, triggering a flashback to the many awful pastimes Rock had been forced into. The sourish scent stunk of outdated dairy, spoiled seafood, and asparagus-tainted urine. The monstrous melody that was Geraldine’s cave brought Rock to his knees.

As Rock looked at the moldy meat, he heard Geraldine’s ravings in his head. The chemicals in those soaps and shampoos shorten the average lifespan. That’s why you’ll need to stay clean and why I need to maintain my natural oils. Rock had watched Geraldine grow conspiratorial in her old age. It was like she sensed death looming, but her bottomless wealth could only extend her life so far.

“What are you waiting for?” Geraldine asked.

She pulled her leg backward, exposing her cunt and asshole. The playful passion in her voice was starting to dry up. Impatience—anger—could return at any moment.

As the sickening crack of her hip popping resounded through Rock’s skull, he knew it was best to begin. A woman of Geraldine’s age shouldn’t have been so flexible, but she’d put Rock up to the task with such regularity that the yoga-like stretch had become an amateur task.

He’d heard her bone clear as a church bell. It rang most times just before he was presented with his most appalling chore. With an inner disturbance beating around his bowels, he wished it was over, but wishes weren’t for people like him. They were for those who celebrated birthdays, and those who aspired to accomplish great things in their lifetimes. They were for normal people that hadn’t disappointed everyone they’d come into contact with.

Rock unhinged his jaw and tried to accumulate saliva. Anxiety had dried his mouth to dust. He stared at the faded meat littered with spiky, gray hair. There were patches of scratchy, old skin infected with flaking, dead cells. Not to mention a mortifying, rash-like irritation that encompassed her entire cunt. There were also other areas afflicted with random discoloration—flesh dominated by something that looked fungal in origin.

Geraldine harbored countless battle scars from the experimentation Fuchs had put her through. The molecules of other men had left her altered. She’d made many sacrifices en route to achieving an impossible dream.

“Do it!” she barked.

As Geraldine waited for Rock to dive in, she glared deeply into her reflection in the standing mirror.

Rock finally consented, sticking his boxy face between her feminine snakebite. As his tongue registered her tart taint, he did his best not to vomit. He couldn’t prevent it totally, but the minuscule, acidic wave that crept up his esophagus proved useful.

He swashed it around his palate, allowing his dry mouth a measure of relief before he went full-bore eating her clit. It was a trick he’d learned some time ago, using his own revulsion to his benefit. As Rock nibbled on the rosy micro-penis, he allowed the clear vomit to dribble over her pussy and down her ass crack.

“Oh, yes!” Geraldine roared.

Her cries signified how alive she felt.

She arched her head back and used her free hand to latch onto the hairs growing from her mole. She twisted the elongated follicles with each lap Rock took, then refocused her gaze on her worn reflection. She became lost in herself as she wailed out and tugged the sharp mole-hairs, taking joy in the subtle, stinging pain.

Rock accelerated, using the technique he’d gained from their prior encounters. He tried his damndest to make her cum as quickly as possible. He didn’t want to be eating her ass and cunt any longer than the bare minimum.

He kicked into an even higher gear, accelerating his perverse actions, doing his best to remember what made her moist. Rock’s jaw began to ache alongside his heart. He used his fattest finger to gather spit and puke, then gently massage the skin between each of her holes.

“Fuck,” she cried. “Don’t stop! Don’t you fucking—”

Geraldine’s sentence was cut off by her own lust-laced excitement. Her eyes widened to capacity as ecstasy overwhelmed her, and her ghastly head whipped side to side with such jubilation that it caused her bottom dentures to eject from her mouth.

A hearty wad of drool leaked from her gummy mouth in the heat of the passion. Geraldine didn’t let the slip spoil her moment. She cradled Rock’s face with her thighs and pulled it deeper into her pussy. Then she dug her pointy nails into the back of his head and came like a hurricane.